Title

An Aerodynamic Study of the Nasals and Nasalization in Taiwanese Mandarin

Author

Chang Yueh-chin, Hsieh Feng-fan, Ou Kai-yun, Hsieh Yu-lun

Genre

Article

Pages

631-653

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

nasal, nasalization, coarticulation, oral and nasal airflow, Taiwanese Mandarin

Abstract

This work is an aerodynamic study of the nasals and nasalization in Taiwanese Mandarin. Our principal findings are: (a) the magnitude of carryover nasalization is greater than that of anticipatory nasalization, (b) the degree of nasalization in the high vowels are significantly larger than that in the non-high vowels, (c) voicing and aspiration induce more nasalization in the vowels, (d) the velar nasal coda induces more nasal airflow in the preceding vowels, while the coronal nasal is produced with larger nasal airflow (albeit both insignificant), (e) regarding the contextual place neutralization of the nasal codas [n] and [ŋ], our results show that durationally speaking, the “neutralized” nasal coda (represented as [N] here) is shorter than [n] and [ŋ] in duration, while [N] is produced with more nasal airflow than [n] and [ŋ] (which is not statistically significant, though), suggesting that [N] is an incompletely neutralized allophonic variation. Finally, the experimental results are discussed in terms of the typology of phonetic implementation.